


this simple season is all ours

by lunati0ns



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Gen, Luz Noceda Needs a Hug, Mutual Pining, amity the burnt out gifted kid, amity's hopeless crush on luz and other things that can be seen from space, bro we are teens its okay to be your full authentic self around me.... bro, cheerleader luz, eventually, gus doesn't count because he's very smart and also not buff, hidden identity, i think? what is a pacing. we get to, kind of the half of it inspired but this is a love story and there's no himbo, luz: things are cool and i am fine, narrator: things were not cool and she was not fine, quarterback amity, rated teen for like swearing, riddled with high school cliches because luz deserves them, slow to medium burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunati0ns/pseuds/lunati0ns
Summary: After a disastrous life-long school career, Luz’s first year at Hexside High is supposed to be a new start, and she’s not going to let anything ruin it. Especially not herself. She starts her year resolved to have a completely ordinary experience.This plan goes completely out the window when it turns out that Hexside is nothing like she expects, in that a) she’s actually accepted onto their cheerleading squad (first try, even!), b) she makes actual friends who like her who she is (?!) and c) she’s given a mysterious pen pal who may turn out to understand her better than anyone else she’s ever met.
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Camila Noceda & Luz Noceda, Luz Noceda & Everyone, background camila noceda/eda clawthorne, background edric blight/jerbo, background emira blight/viney
Comments: 48
Kudos: 151





	1. i will get lonely, and gasp for air

**Author's Note:**

> howdy there!! I’m diving into the world of longfics…. I do not understand how they work so heres hoping it doesn’t get boring or confusing halfway thru. I know everyone’s already done a everyone’s human high school au before already but i…. Also wanted to? shrugs!!
> 
> also i was just in high school literally a couple months ago and now i dont remember… anything about it…. I had to google how many periods there are in a school day? Help?
> 
> [(title of this chapter is from get lonely by the mountain goats)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXw_p3FrYBQ)

On the way-too-early morning of her first day of freshman year, Luz lingers in front of her full-length mirror and struggles to tie her uniform tie while wrestling down the twisting nerves making her stomach churn. 

As she carefully regulates her breathing, she glances over her appearance and tries to get used to the look of it. The black blazer and stiff grey long pants look strange on her, she thinks as her eye pauses on the Hexside symbol emblazoned on her jacket. At least she got to keep her sneakers. She’s never gone to a school with a uniform before. She’s never had to know how to tie a _tie_ before, and she’s regretting not learning how before now because her fingers are fumbling uselessly within what might be but probably isn’t a knot. Everyone else probably knows how to tie _their_ ties, and she’s going to show up with this mess on her chest looking like an idiot and -- 

“Mija?” 

Luz startles. She hadn’t heard the door open behind her. A forced smile sprints onto her face as she locks eyes with her mother’s concerned face through the reflection. She’s wearing her sky blue nurse scrubs, Luz notices. She’ll be going to work soon. “Mami! Morning!” 

“I didn’t expect you to be up so early, estrellita,” Camila says, stepping fully into Luz’s room. “Eda won’t be here to pick you up for another hour or so. It’s still dark outside.” 

Luz knows that. She’d just given up hope on getting any sort of sleep and figured that she might as well get a headstart on putting herself together. “Oh! Well, y’know! I’m just…”

“Nervous?” Luz feels her mother’s gentle hands land on both her shoulders and turn her around so that they’re facing each other. 

Very. 

“Course not!” Luz says instead, directing the manufactured smile up at Camila’s face in desperate hopes of easing the worried lines around her eyes. She even does a tiny bounce on the back of her heels to sell it a little better. “I’m excited!”

A tired and mirthful little breath huffs out of mother’s nose as she moves her hands to Luz’s chest, nudging her fumbling fingers off of the piece of cloth giving her so much trouble. As Luz sputters, Camila expertly weaves the yellow tie into a proper shape in a few quick movements. It’s done in what feels like a blink.

“How the --?!” Luz gapes at the necktie in awe, then at her mother, who just smiles at her wryly. “I watched… so many tutorials trying to learn how to -- and you just? What?” 

This time, Camila’s laugh has more substance as she pats Luz’s cheek. The sound eases her nerves a little. “Practice, mija.” 

Camila doesn’t bring her hand away from her daughter's face, just stays cupping it as she takes in the sight of Luz all dressed up for her first day at her new school. The curve of her brow is fretful, but the dim light of her eyes is warm. She always looked like that, Luz thinks as she feels her chest ache with guilt. So worried about her. “Have a good day for me, okay? Make some friends.”

It's impossible for Luz to promise that and she can’t be more sorry about it. “I’ll try.”

Her mother leans in to brush her lips against Luz’s forehead, and Luz closes her eyes and leans into the touch, soaks in the familiar comfort, like if she tries hard enough she’ll be able to keep the feeling the affection gives her with her and let it carry her through the whole day. 

With that, Camila pulls away from her with one last once over to make sure she looks alright, before she reluctantly turns and leaves the room.

Luz stands there and listens to the sound of Camila finishing her morning business, the beep of the coffee maker and the jingle of her keys, then the opening and final closing of the front door. 

She feels her loss acutely. 

Then she takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and gets ready to waste time pacing around the house until Eda pulls up in her driveway.

(She very carefully does not think about the box underneath her bed.)

* * *

Sunrise comes just as Eda arrives.

“Gooood morning, kid!” Eda grins at her toothily from the driver’s seat when Luz opens the passenger side door, long fingers loose around the steering wheel. “Hop in.” 

“Morning, Eda!” Luz climbs into the front seat and is immediately forced to fold her long legs to her chest with how close the chair is to the dashboard. Her messenger bag is sandwiched between her thighs and her middle. “Oof. Uh,” Luz wheezes, blindly reaching for the lever to adjust the seat. “Was King sitting up here?” 

“Oh! Yeah, he was. Hah.” Eda snorts. “Took him around the neighborhood a couple times last night to help him sleep. Rides knock him out like nothing else. Speaking of…” She juts her thumb at the back seat while she moves the stick shift out of park and into drive. “Check it out.” 

Luz fixes her seat so that she can actually _move,_ puts on her seatbelt, then leans over to look in the back and coos at what she sees. In his booster seat sits Kingsley (or King, as he prefers to be called), a little boy with dark skin mottled with pale patches (complete with a strange and endearingly skull shaped pattern on his face) and short, wild dark hair, hunched over and fast asleep. A little bit of drool drips off his lip. 

It’s hard to muffle her giggles behind her hands, but Luz manages it from how much she wants to avoid waking him. She’d never get over how _cute_ he could be, though the boy himself was loath to admit it.

  
“He’s been sleeping like that the whole drive,” Eda says, chuckling as Luz turns forward in her seat again, this time with a grin on her face. “May have to wake up a couple hours earlier than usual, but at least he gets to nap to make up for it.”

Luz winces. “Have we thanked you for that yet? Driving an hour up from Bonesborough and then back down another just to get me to school…” 

“Only a million times already,” Eda rolls her eyes as she pulls the car out of the Noceda driveway and into the road. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s _really_ no problem, Luz. I’ve spent more gas money on less, even I know how good of a school Hexside is and there’s no way I’m letting you miss out on a scholarship there because their stupid rich bus routes don’t go to your neighborhood, King basically started bouncing off the walls when I told him we’d be seeing you in the morning every day, yadda yadda yadda.” Her coach-but-technically-not-her-coach-anymore-really reaches over to ruffle her hair without taking her eyes off the road. “Now quit feeling weird and guilty and zone out at your phone, or whatever weird thing you teens do.” 

How did she always do so much for them then act like it wasn’t even a big deal? “Mmm…” Luz hums as she pats her curly hair back down into its proper messy but like, on purpose about it, style. She still wants to make up somehow, as much as she can. “Can I zone out at your phone instead? I could help you beat that Candy Crush level you’re stuck on.” 

Eda gasps, sitting up ramrod straight in her seat with sparkling eyes like a dog that’s just had a treat waved in front of it. Luz could almost see the wagging tail.

She swallows down a laugh. Yeah, that’s what she thought. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she says, taking Eda’s phone out of the cup holder and putting in the code. It’s 0927, her mom’s birthday. Honestly, it was a wonder she still hadn’t realized Eda had a crush on her -- even Luz knew. Even _King_ knew! … Come to think of it, how sad Camila had looked at the thought of her missing out on the opportunity to go to Hexside because she couldn’t reliably drive her was probably a huge factor towards how quickly Eda offered the idea that led them here. Pfft.

Thinking about her mother’s love life is much, much preferable to thinking about how nervous she is. 

Eda very kindly doesn’t comment on how much Luz’s hands shake as her fingers fly across the glass screen. She just turns on the radio, lets it play a soft song at a low volume, and allows Luz to listen to that and the sound of King’s snoring rather than drowning in her own thoughts. 

* * *

There isn’t anyone outside the school when Eda pulls up to the front gate. Luz gives King, still asleep, a kiss on the forehead goodbye and Eda a hug for good luck, then gets out of the car and meanders up the stone path. 

Luz is used to school buildings that are one huge brick the same color as the mystery meat they serve in the cafeteria. Hexside isn’t like that at all. It’s -- big, in a word, and it’s opulent presence only makes it seem to tower even taller over her as she walks into its shadow. The building is all expensive-looking white stone and tall, squarish steeples, and Luz thinks she can pretty comfortably describe it as gothic, in atmosphere if nothing else. 

The entrance doors are made of a richly colored dark wood that she has to climb a set of grand ivory stairs to get to, and there are actual real-life marble columns holding up the roof. She feels like she’s walking into a really fancy museum rather than the place that she’s going to be complaining about math homework inside for the next four years. 

Her feet stop in front of the door and don’t let her go any further. Now that she’s standing here, she can’t muster up enough force to strangle the pure _anxiety_ rolling through her like a storm -- it’s hard to think. 

What thoughts she can manage boil down to this: she really can’t afford to mess this up, this time. Her mother let her move to an entirely different district just so that she could have another chance, so she _has_ to make this work, it _has_ to be worth the trouble, and she can't be loud or talkative in class or so weird that it makes everyone hate her on the spot like she always did by being herself. 

So she’s not going to! She won’t be herself. She’ll be someone better. Goodbye to the old Luz Noceda because there’s someone new in town, and _she’s_ definitely not thinking about how much she feels like a slice of life anime protagonist right now! 

It’s going to be alright. She has to believe that or she can’t move forward.

Luz takes a deep, shuddering breath, and then does what she always does when she’s facing something frightening. Determination furrowing her brow, she grabs the door handle, rips it open, and walks straight into the opening hall. 

The first thing she notices is how high the ceilings are -- and really, they’re like a million feet off the ground, what kind of school needed ceilings that high? Her sneakers squeak against the ruddy tile floor, and Luz has to stop gape at the hall -- the floors gleam like someone actually bothered to clean them, walls of shiny red lockers are interspersed with more grey stone pillars, and it doesn’t even smell like -- like old dusty cheese, or some other Teen Body Odor. It’s like... It smells like lemons, actually. 

Luz doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to this. 

The second thing she notices is that the inside is just as empty as the front yard, instead of full of kids running around and talking and laughing with their friends (and maybe turning to sneer at her as soon as she walked through the door -- no, no one knew her here it wouldn’t be like that it wouldn’t--) like she expected. 

Is she… late? She just got here, but she didn’t hear a bell ring or anything.

Luz takes a couple hesitant steps forward. Reaches into her pocket and pulls out her schedule, squints at it. She doesn’t know where her first class is. 

“Hey!” 

The scratchy voice pulls her attention to the side, and she spots someone, a girl with her brown hair pulled into a messy bun and a purposeful edge to her stride walking down the hallway towards her.

  
Well, this is convenient. “Hi!” Luz greets, trying to seem friendly but not too friendly because that’s weird. “Can you help me find --?” 

“You’re a freshman, aren’t you?” The girl says. 

What. How did she know that? Oh wait -- Luz glances down at the ID hanging around her neck and remembers that all of the different years had uniquely colored stripes blazed across them, with purple for the freshmen, then back up at her with her best friendly grin. Now that she’s looking she sees that the girl’s ID has the green stripe, marking her as a junior. “Yeah! Do you know where --” 

“The auditorium is?” She finishes for her. 

Luz blinks. “Why would I need to go to the auditorium?”

“For th -- for the freshman’s beginning of the year meeting thing? Did no one tell you?” 

This was not covered in the brochure. “Nnnnnnnooo?” 

“Oh my god,” The girl gripes, smacking her palm into her forehead then pushing the fringe of hair there back, exasperated. “Bump does this every freakin’ year, he doesn’t tell the newbies! Okay look, you gotta get to the auditorium for the meeting, it’s mandatory. You’re lucky I recognized that ‘I don’t know where the hell I’m going’ freshie look you’ve got on.” 

Oh. Well. Okay. But she doesn’t know where the auditorium is. She’s been to Hexside a couple times before, once to take the scholarship aptitude exam and another to finalize the details of her admission once she passed, but neither times had she even heard anything about…. this. “Thank you? Uh, so how do I --”

This time it’s the bell that interrupts her, and to Luz’s surprise it sounds like an actual physical bell tolling rather than electric recording; she can feel the sound reverberating through her bones a little. It makes her jump but the junior, apparently used to it, doesn’t even flinch, just looks up and clicks her tongue.

“Crap. Okay, I’m late for class so I gotta head out, but I’ll see you around.” The junior strides past Luz with a hefty pat to her shoulder. “Welcome to Hexside, dude.” 

“But where’s the -- !” Luz tries to ask, but the girl has already whisked around some lockers and disappeared. “... Auditorium... “ 

Well. Fantastic first day already. Wait, no, that’s pessimistic! Luz straightens and smacks her hands on both sides of her face to scold herself. It’d be okay! And besides, she met someone and, even though she left before Luz could get her name, she didn’t hate her immediately! The girl was even helpful! If a bit brusque. 

Now that she’s already had a nice encounter, all she has to do is find the auditorium and the rest of her day will stay sailing smoothly. How hard could it be? 

* * *

Apparently very, very hard.

It takes a good ten minutes of scurrying around silent and frustratingly labyrinthine halls (They didn’t even give her a _map!_ ) before Luz finally stumbles across the doors to what she’s pretty sure is the auditorium, only to find that they’re locked when she tries to ease them open. Sounds are muffled through the wood, but Luz can still hear someone talking behind them. The presentation’s already started.

She allows herself exactly one second to despair before she picks up all her pieces and forces them back into the shape of a person. Maybe there’s a back entrance? 

To her relief, walking all the way around does reveal another entrance, and this one is open. She cracks opens the door and is immediately hit with a wave of sound, the voice from before but clear and loud. 

“--and I think that will be all for my portion of this year’s presentation,” announces what she thinks is Principal Bump, if she’s remembering how he sounded when he and her mother met to finalize the details of her scholarship correctly. “Now, I’ll turn this over to your freshmen prefect, Ms. _Amity_ _Blight!”_

The crowd obligingly falls into applause as Luz slips into the dark room. Someone else begins to speak, a higher, steady and professional sounding voice, but Luz tunes out their words as she creeps away from her entrance point and further into the place she’s found herself in -- where is she? 

Blinking to adjust her eyes to the dimness, Luz looks around. There are ropes hanging down from the ceiling, thick curtains too, she thinks, and a bunch of official-looking technology boards and as she moves towards the light she realizes that those are spotlights shining down on the -- _oh dios mio, she’s backstage._

...Ha. Haha! She is… not supposed to be here! 

But it’s _fine!_ Because Luz is still hidden behind the curtains, and the girl on stage-- and it’s a girl speaking, Luz realizes, with painfully upright posture and a couple of note cards in her hands resting on the podium, hasn’t noticed her, and a peek through the curtains confirms that the crowd, Bump in the front row included, haven’t either. So it’s fine. It’s cool. It’s chill. All she has to do is find a way off stage and into an empty seat without anyone noticing her. Piece of cake. 

Luz turns around, takes one step forward, and promptly gets her foot caught in some ropes piled on the floor. 

A viciously bitten tongue prevents any noise from escaping her as she pinwheels her arms trying to catch her balance, but it doesn’t save her from falling backwards into one of those technology boards, her hand landing hard on something that _clicked_ when her weight pressed down on it. 

Luz freezes, eyes blown wide.

…

Oh. Well maybe it didn’t do anyth-- 

Every single light in the auditorium flashes off. A shocked murmur comes over the crowd, and the girl abruptly stops speaking, but the microphone sings an awkward static whine into the quiet but busy air. 

A metallic _kerchunk_ sounds from above. When Luz looks up she sees that it’s a panel sliding away on the ceiling above the audience to reveal a compartment, and as she watches a huge, glowing disco ball slowly drops down from it. Once the disco ball’s clicked into place two more panels open at its sides, and two… cannons (?!) plop down, pointing at the seats. 

Okay, so it did... Something!

Before Luz can even begin to try to figure out how to _undo_ the something, three things happen simultaneously: 1) All of the spotlights flash back on but instead of normal white light, they’re each a different color, red, blue, green and all the rest, and they automatically direct themselves at the now slowly spinning disco ball on the ceiling, making a kaleidoscope of rainbow light flash all around the room through the dark 2) the canons on the ceiling explode, fire lobby after lobby of _confetti onto the now screaming swarm of students what the heck 3) every speaker in the room starts blasting hardcore electrical party music at full volume._

It’s like Luz’s been dropped on her head in the middle of the most scholarly underground rave in the world, the music is so loud it feels like drills in her ears -- and actually she’s pretty sure she’s used this _exact_ song in one of her amvs-- no, _focus_ ! Luz stares in mute horror past the curtain again and sees that the room has fallen into utter chaos, rows and rows of students laughing uproariously or grinning in confusion or just plain yelling as confetti rains down and covers them in prismatic paper and dots of disco lights streak across the room, all while Bump tries and fails to regain control over them, yelling something about how _this display was supposed to be for this year’s graduation, why is it set up now?!_

Hhhhyikes. Luz glances back at the girl on stage and feels like she’s been doused in ice water when she finds that the prefect is staring _straight at her,_ her incredibly severe face scarlet all the way down to her ears with either fury or embarrassment or both. At least Luz is pretty sure it’s scarlet, it’s a little hard to tell with all the -- the flashing lights smearing over her expression.

_Yikes!_ “Uh. Hi!” Judging by the way the girl's expression twists, the casual greeting either makes all this worse or she just can’t hear Luz at all over the blaring screech of music. “I got this!” Luz says anyways, and without breaking eye contact starts pressing buttons on the panel at random. Maybe one of them would turn this all off? 

It does not turn it off! It only changes the music -- with each button there’s a rapid shift in tone, a song that would fit an elegant slow dance, the next befitting the somber, dark march of a funeral, then the grand rising tune of a graduation ceremony, then smooth jazz, then _Cotton Eye Joe who MADE this playlist --_

“What are you _doing_ _?!”_ The girl shrieks at her, and starts to march off the stage towards Luz with murderous intent in her eyes. 

Ah. So this is how Luz dies! 

Not wanting to meet her fate, she tries to stumble away from the approaching girl and trips on another twist of rope. _Why is there so much rope here? Luz_ careens backwards again, and instead of catching herself on the panel as she’d almost hoped, her flailing gets her a handful of rich, heavy cloth, and Luz feels the stage curtain jerk out of place from above. 

With a muted _ploomf_ a mountain of curtains spill down on her and flatten her like a weighted blanket just as she hits the chill floor, and both impacts knock all the wind out of her. For a moment Luz just sits there in her new cocoon, dazed. 

  
  


Through the haze of the curtain, the music falls silent and all the lights, the regular ones this time, flash back on. Someone tugs on the edge of her blanket and Luz is ripped back into brilliant light. 

She blinks to readjust her eyes, and once she gets used to the brightness she stills like a rabbit caught in the sights of a wolf, because she finds that the prefect is standing directly over her and glaring down at her with her face still a furious blush, and the cold emerald green of her eyes pin Luz to the floor. Everything about her face, her dignified nose and cheekbones and immaculately done make up, are all sharp edges. Her pale skin (the parts of it that aren’t red, anyways) is stark against her coal-black hair, done in a half updo. Perfectly done eyebrows drawn together and her mouth drawn into a snarl, the prefect is the very picture of unyielding and very, _very_ angry. 

It’s the worst time to be thinking this, but she’s as pretty as she is terrifying, and Luz’s heart skips a beat for more than one reason looking up at her. 

A second passes with the girl just seething. 

Uhhhhhhhh.

Principal Bump comes into view next, deeply exhausted as he leans over to peer at her. Confetti still flutters weightlessly through the air above him, and Luz can hear that the audience is still all abuzz.

Luz tries for a wide, nervous smile. Neither of their expressions change. 

“Ms. Noceda,” Bump says, despairing. “ _Why.”_

* * *

Luz has to stay behind to get a to apologize to the prefect and receive a scolding for her tardiness and disruptiveness while the rest of her peers filter out through the double doors, giggling at her over their shoulders. She gets a good couple detentions, but she manages to escape the encounter without her mother being contacted, so she guesses that counts as a win. 

(But the entire time -- the prefect girl had stood behind Bump as he lectured, expression as though she relished the fact that Luz was being punished and lectured. She even joined in with a few choice, biting words, her tone carrying such clear contempt and dislike that it made Luz kind of nauseous. She really hadn’t _meant_ to ruin the girl’s speech at all, but neither of them cared much about that, and all Luz could do was sit there and take the treatment, shrink into herself, and wish she was anywhere but there.)

After she’s finally let go, she hurries to her first class of the day. As if being late to the meeting wasn’t bad enough, now she has to be late to math, too. 

When she gets inside, her new teacher pauses lecturing to watch her awkwardly shuffle to an empty seat, posture hunched. “Ms. Noceda,” the tall, hawkish woman says, narrowing her eyes at Luz from behind oval glasses frames. “I should hope that you don’t have as much of a habit of _interrupting_ as you seem to, or else I do not see you and I getting along this year.” 

Some hushed snickers float through the air. 

Luz sinks down into her seat and wishes that she could sink into the ground instead, cheeks burning with embarrassment. “No, ma’am,” she mutters, gaze locked on her desk. The teacher _hmphs_ snootily and turns back to the whiteboard. 

For the rest of the day, other than her first teacher’s snide comment, Luz is mostly ignored. On one hand it’s relieving to be just a part of the collective new wave of students pouring into the school. A couple people side-eye her, maybe point and mutter and giggle at most, but no one makes fun of her to her face. 

(No one makes any effort at all to talk to her.) 

After the display from that morning, Luz has lost her courage. She’s not going to be trying to bulldoze her way into friendships today, and maybe not tomorrow, either (Not trying so hard was part of her plan to not seem so weird, anyways, so it… it all worked out. But not holding a real conversation with anyone, it _gnaws_ at her in the same way it has every day for the past few years of her life, draining her of all her energy. Time moves at an excruciating crawl, and it’s made worse by the fact that all she does in all her classes is listen to her teachers drone about their syllabuses, so there’s no real distraction from how alone she is. 

Lunch is no better than class. Not because the food is bad -- Luz pokes at the meatloaf and it doesn’t even jiggle back (Private schools are so, _so_ weird). 

It’s just that she can barely hear the clatter of her tray on the plastic as she sits at an empty table in the corner of the room, so loud is the din of everyone talking in the cafeteria. Usually she doesn’t like the quiet very much, but she kind of wishes she were somewhere silent now, where she didn’t have to hear every single one of them speaking all at once. They all look so friendly with each other already. Luz suddenly realizes; Hexside’s a K-12 school so most of them had probably known each other since middle school, maybe even since their elementary years. All over again, she's the odd one out.

A boy behind her elbows his friend when they make a bad joke that leaves the table groaning, a group of girls at another table besides her chatter to each other as all they bow their heads over one phone, one girl passes her by with another riding on her back and playfully ordering her about with an evil cackle, and Luz has no choice but to notice all of it, can only let what feels like hundreds of voices and calls and jokes that aren’t _for_ her crash over her like a tidal wave, and this is _always_ the worst thing about having no friends. 

Dark storm clouds tumble mercilessly over her shoulders, roaring with the cacophony of the lunchroom rather than regular lightning and thunder -- they press down on her like physical things and it's all she can do to just breathe and keep breathing beneath their weight. 

It's just… 

She's lonely. Luz swallows hard as her vision blurs with tears she can't afford to let fall. She's just really, really lonely, is all, and she’s made a mess of things already and no one wants to be her friend, and she can't do anything about it but sit and stare at her food, mind slipping away from her, spiraling down, down, into the worst parts of her mind. The kids around her disappear, become one colorful, lively mass that gives her and the dark chasm she sits in a terribly wide berth, that doesn’t even notice she’s there, the divide between them an invisible wall she can’t climb no matter how hard she tries.

Just eating where she’s supposed to always becomes nothing but a cruel reminder that no matter what, even when she’s surrounded by people, she’s completely alone.

And it's no wonder that she is after this morning. Who'd want to be seen with someone like her, who'd proven how huge of an _idiot_ she was, what, twenty minutes after stepping into their lives? 

Wait, no, it didn't do her any good to think like this. Luz shakes her head to clear her negative thoughts. It only dispels a couple of them, but -- what is she moping for? It’s not like she isn't used to this by now.

She should be, at least. Loneliness is her oldest and only friend. She’s walked with the hole of it yawning inside her for as long as she’s been old enough to realize it was there. It hurts, sure, but it always hurt, this choking pressure -- She’s been holding it in her lungs, trapped on the inhale, through every year of school she’s gone through her entire life.

… Anyways, it’s fine. Soon she'll be able to breathe out, because Hexside is going to be different. She promised herself it would. This day turned out a mess but it's just the first one, she'll be able to turn the next around. Tomorrow will be a better day. 

(It’s so much harder to fix your problems when you’re on your own.)

Luz takes a deep breath that forces her eyes to dry, picks up her fork, and robotically starts to eat. 

* * *

After lunch, Luz trudges to her next class. AP Literature. One of her few advanced ones (her mother worried about her taking too many and becoming overwhelmed), but the one she was looking forward to the most. Luz loves books! There’s no way she won’t enjoy a literature class, right? 

The teacher, a young and serene looking woman in a swishy green dress and a plastic flower crown (It looks really pretty and Luz wonders where she bought it), holds the door open to the mostly empty classroom for her. “Welcome!” she chirps, smiling at Luz.

She can’t help but stare at her in shock, her head turning to keep the woman in her sights as she wanders inside. That was so -- so nice?! This lady’s the cheeriest person she’s met all day, and she’s Luz’s teacher? “T-Thank you!” Luz remembers to say over her shoulder once she recovers, managing to perk up a little. 

Maybe this class really would be enj-- _oh hi, prefect who’s speech she ruined earlier._ “AH-haaaaaheeey, girl!” Luz blurts then tries to recover, instinctively rocking on her back foot and shooting finger guns as Amity Blight herself scowls at her from across the desk Luz had stumbled to a stop in front of. Amity gives her no answer. Luz laughs awkwardly. “How’s it hangin’?”

Amity’s scowl, somehow, deepens. “ _Don’t_ talk to me,” she hisses, low and venomous. 

Why is Luz cursed? She drops the finger guns. “Hahokay! Right!” Luz says, turning on her heel and skittering to her desk. She can feel Amity’s gaze burning into her back the whole way there. 

“Isn’t that the freak from this morning?” Someone -- Luz doesn’t turn around to see who, just flops into a seat in the back of the room and starts rifling through her messenger bag for nothing but to look busy -- whispers. They may as well’ve shouted for how easily Luz can hear it. 

“Ugh, don’t pay her any mind, Boscha. Bump already took care of her,” Amity says, and when Luz makes the mistake of chancing a glance at her she sees Amity looking back, and there’s that feeling from this morning again -- her stare forces Luz to still entirely, pinned beneath it. For a moment they just stay like that, emerald green boring into dark brown. 

Then Amity looks away from her, inky hair falling over her face like a curtain, and the spell is broken. 

“She’s just a nobody.” 

The words ring distant and hollow in Luz’s ears. She puts her head on her desk and doesn’t raise it again until class begins. 

After the rest of the kids file through the door and the bell rings, English turns out to be the same as her other classes, for the most part. Their teacher, who introduces herself as Mrs. Fay, explains the syllabus, general class rules -- that sort of thing, all the way up to when the time is drawing to an end.

“I know I must be boring you all, and I apologize for that,” Mrs. Fay starts, clicking off the Powerpoint and drifting to the front of the room. “But! I’m happy to inform you that we’re now upon what I think is the most interesting part of our class today! It’ll appeal to those who enjoy a good story --” 

Luz lifts her head off her desk. Amity, she notices, straightens in her seat as well. 

“-- _and_ those looking for an easy extra credit opportunity.” 

That makes the rest of the kids perk up.

Mrs. Fay, looking pleased to have restored their interest in class after nearly half an hour of mandatory droning, reaches over and grabs a book off her desk, then holds it up so that everyone can see the cover. Luz is too far back to read the title but from what she can see, the image on the front is of a fancy looking parchment paper that has hearts being drawn on it in red ink with a feather pen guided by the dark, vague silhouette of a person’s hand. 

“Meet _Lost Love Letter_ , our book for the semester! All the other Literature classes are reading Shakespeare, or To Kill A Mockingbird, or things like that, but I think this’ll be a lot more fun. It follows the story of two completely anonymous people falling in love through nothing but the letters they send each other -- they’ve never met, and don’t even know the other’s real name, only their pen names; Tabby and Wren.”

A hand shoots into the air.

Mrs. Fay points at the hand’s source, a girl with strawberry blonde hair who’s sitting right behind Amity. “Yes?”

“How are they supposed to fall in love if they’ve never even met? They don’t know anything about each other,” The girl asks, obnoxiously popping her bubble gum in her mouth. 

“No chewing gum in my class, Boscha, dear.” Fay says with an indulgent smile. “But that is a wonderful question, and the exact sort I was hoping to inspire! Can you get to know a person without _knowing_ them, in the traditional sense of the word? Lost Love Letter puts forward the idea that you can, and that you may even be able to become closer to someone that way than you would otherwise, with first impressions and assumptions forced out of the way. Words are the closest thing we have to putting our hearts on paper, and if you can know everything about someone’s heart before anything else about them…” 

Boscha crosses her arms. “Pfft. I don’t buy it.” 

Luz, on the other hand, is just about vibrating in her seat, stars glowing in her eyes. It’s a struggle to not make any disruptive noises like squeals but it’s just that the set up is so _romantic!_ She wants to be reading this book yesterday!

“And I appreciate your point of view.” Mrs. Fay pauses to look meaningfully at Boscha. Boscha, taking the hint, gets up from her seat with a groan to go to the trash can and spit out her gum. 

Mrs. Fay hums as the girl crosses in front of her, satisfied, and resumes. “Many students have trouble thinking that it’s possible, while others believe it with all their hearts. Which makes for some excellent discussions! However, discussing isn’t all we’re going to do, and this is where the extra credit portion comes in. We, my darlings, are going to _experiment!”_

Experiment? Luz leans forward, thoroughly enraptured. Experiment how?

“I’ll be assigning each and every one of you a letter writing partner of your own to speak with every day! They may be in this period sitting next to you, or in any of my other periods, but no one in the entire school except for me will have any way of knowing who they are. You can ask the sophomores who took my class last year, I keep this project, as the youth say, _on lock._ ” A couple kids groan, but Mrs. Fay just laughs brightly. “Here’s how it’ll work: You’ll choose a pen name, and each day at the beginning of class you’ll write your letter and put it in whichever of the many, many cubbies on the wall that I assign to you.” She gestures to the back and Luz looks over to her shoulder, noticing for the first time that the huge wooden shelf spanning the entire back wall held no books, and was instead pocketed with multiple beehive-like little spaces.

“When everyone is gone home for the day, I’ll take your letter out of your cubby and put it in your partner’s. The next day you can come in and take their response letter from your cubby, read it, and reply during the beginning of class. Rinse and repeat every day for the whole year. However!” Mrs. Fay claps, drawing their attention back to her again. “We do have some ground rules!” 

“1.) Do _not_ tell your partner who you are, because that takes the fun out of the whole experiment! If I find out that you’re trying to sleuth out your buddy, you won’t get the extra credit. 2.) Don’t steal anyone else’s letters. I won’t give you extra credit if you do that, either. 3.) Please don’t share anything _inappropriate or illegal_ with your buddy _.”_ For a moment Mrs. Fay looks pleading. _“_ I swear on my life I’ll never read these letters unless I’m forced to, but if you confess to, let’s say, a theft or assault or worse and your partner comes to me about it, I’ll _legally_ have to look into it and no one wants that. Please.” 

Silence falls over the room as she lets the message sink in. 

Then Mrs. Fay smiles again, like the tone shift never even happened. “Other than that, have fun! It’s completely optional, if you want the credit but don’t want to make an effort all you have to do is scribble on your paper where I can see you for a couple minutes every day then put it in your cubby, but I advise you to take advantage of this opportunity! This is a chance to get to know one of your classmates with no one looking over your shoulder-- no one can judge you but a person who doesn’t ever have to know who you are, if you don’t want them to. Ah, if you both agree you want to meet at the end of the year I’ll help you set it up, but if one doesn’t want to then it’ll never happen. I’m granting you complete anonymity! It’s like a diary, but one that can hear you and respond!”

It’s a chance to make a real friend, Luz realizes, and a shock of pure _longing_ lances through her so hard it leaves her breathless for a second. She blinks as she fully swallows the thought, lowering her chin onto her crossed arms while the room falls into anticipatory chatter. One that won’t be so easy to ruin -- her mouth can’t run faster than her brain in a letter, and she can’t mess something up for them or scare them off with her weird mannerisms, either. 

Over the next ten minutes, everyone comes up with a pen name (with the promise that they can change it later, if they end up disliking it) that their teacher marks down on her clipboard, is assigned a cubby, and is given a piece of paper and an envelope to write their first letter.

Other than the deliberation over choosing her name, she doesn’t hesitate before she curls over her desk and begins to write.

_To my partner,_

_Hi there! It’s really nice to meet you! Or I guess, not really meet you, but… to be able to talk to you? At least I hope I’ll be able to talk to you, and that you won’t just send me a bunch of scribbles every day for free extra credit at the end of the year._

_It’s kind of hard to figure out ways to introduce yourself without saying your name or anything, huh? Uh... I'm a freshman, and I'm completely new to Hexside. Did you go here before now? Are the assignments always this fun? I've never done anything like this before! Uh… My favorite subject is English! I really like cats, and dogs too, and_ ~~_anim_ _writi_ _readi_~~ _doing backflips and other super normal things like watching TV. I hope that I’ll be able to get to know you and I’m excited to read your letter tomorrow!_

_From, Azure_

She sits up, giving her message a once over. Yeah, Luz’s chosen to call herself Azure. No relation to The Good Witch Azura! It’s just-- blue just so happens to be her favorite color. So it’s totally clever and works out and has no weird nerd implications at all.

Just as she finishes her last reread, the bell tolls and the period ends. Shoot! She hurriedly folds her short letter and packs it into the envelope, then gets up to deposit it in her new cubby on her way to hurry out of the room. 

Heart pounding in her chest, she steps into the throng of students in the hall to head to chemistry. She takes a deep breath and lets it out, then marvels at the fact that she actually feels -- good. Her hopes rise and rise and won’t stop rising and she can’t do a thing about it, because this is a chance to have someone her age to talk with, and she’s never been able to have that before. This has to be a sign of her luck changing. Maybe today could end on a good note after all!

* * *

Luz takes one step into her chemistry class and halts in the doorway when she makes direct eye contact with Amity Blight, sitting at one of the tables. 

“Ugh, you again?” Amity sneers, tone soaked in acidic disdain. 

Luz throws up her hands. “Are you _KIDDING me?!”_

* * *

Chemistry is her last class of the day. Once it’s finished, she stumbles out to the car line and collapses into Eda’s old convertible. 

“Hi, Eda,” Luz says into the leather, then pathetically peels her face off the seat to start sitting up like a normal person. 

“Uhh… Hey, kid,” Eda greets hesitantly, raising an eyebrow at her. “How was your day?” 

All too fresh memories hammer down on her and make her wince and moan like a dying animal as she squeezes her eyes shut, and Luz suddenly decides that she’d much rather curl into a little ball on the seat than sit up. 

“Woof.” Eda reaches over to close Luz’s door behind her, then tucks a seat belt over the whimpering ball of high school kid. “That bad, huh. Would unhealthy and sugary food that I, as your gymnastics coach, should not be feeding you help?” 

Luz makes a vaguely affirming noise. Eda nods sagely and starts pulling out of the parking lot. 

“Luz!” Two tiny hands plap down on both her cheeks, and Luz opens her eyes to see King’s smiling, piebald face hovering over hers. Now that he's awake his brown eyes, alight with joy, are clear to see.

“King!” Luz sits up, surprised into returning his cheer. “Hi, cutiepie! What’re you doing here? Didn’t school end for you a couple hours ago?” 

King draws back, embarrassed. “Uhhh…” 

“He was sad he didn’t get to see you off this morning ‘cuz he was too sleepy,” Eda doesn’t take her eyes off the road, but she looks smug as King lets out a little _nyeh!_ of protest. “He begged me to take him along when I picked you up and he’s been waiting on pins and needles for you to get out for hours.”

“I was _not!”_ King shrills. “The King of Demons misses nobody!” He's called himself that, the King of Demons, ever since Luz met him when he was little a few years ago. She thinks it's his own version of having an imaginary friend. It's a little odd, and she adores him for it.

“Awww, buddy!” Luz undoes her seatbelt and climbs into the back with him to envelop the hissing boy in a tight hug, even as he half-heartedly tries to wriggle out of it. He's small for his age and Luz is no pushover in terms of strength, so she knows he knows there's no escape and is only doing it for the sake of his tiny pride. “I missed you too!” 

King stops wriggling. “... Really?” 

“Mhm!” Luz swoops down to plant a kiss on the top of his fluffy hair, making him giggle. “How was school? Make any friends?” 

“No!” King sniffs primly, now wiggling to get comfortable in Luz’s lap as she pulls the seatbelt over the both of them. “The King of Demons has no need for friends.” 

Luz holds back the urge to sigh. Still no luck for him either… The thought makes her a little sad. She doesn’t want King to grow up as lonely as she has. Well. He never really would be, not with her around determined to be there for him, but still. 

King had paused, contemplating something as she thought, but now he speaks up again. “Someone pushed me on the playground today. An’ said my spots are weird.” 

Luz gasps. “Oh no! Did you tell a teacher?” 

“No,” King says, proud. “I put dirt in his sandwich at lunch instead.” 

Eda cackles from the front seat. “That’s my boy!” 

“Eda, don’t _praise_ him for that!”

* * *

Eda stops to get them ice cream on the way home. King regales her of the tales of all the minions he’s collected (he stole someone’s plushie out of their backpack, and Luz spends most of her time in the car trying to convince him to leave it in the lost and found tomorrow) on his first day of second grade while spilling his treat all over his shirt. He sounds so triumphant it helps Luz forget how the majority of her day was a catastrophe. 

Once they get to her house, they all say their goodbyes. Then she goes inside to drop her things all over the floor, change out of her uniform, and start making dinner.

She’s not the best at cooking, but she thinks she’s okay. Certainly good enough to make something edible for her mom after a long day at the hospital. 

For some reason, she doesn’t turn on any music or anything as she works. Just stands in front of the stove and stares at the vegetables frying in the pan as the rice boils. She just… doesn’t feel like it. Even though it would probably make her feel better. 

Darkness has fallen when her mother gets home from work. Luz hears her key turning in the doorknob and the door swing open just as she’s starting to set the table. 

Dread seeps into her, just a little bit. Luz knows what her mom is going to ask her, and she doesn't have a good answer. 

“Luz, baby, ¿estás en tu casa?” 

”Estoy aqui, mami,” Luz calls softly from the kitchen, then turns her head and watches Camila walk inside. 

Her mother rounds the table in a few quick strides and catches Luz in a hug, even though she must be so tired and her feet must hurt her so much and she must want nothing more than to sit down. She smells like antiseptic and home. Luz returns the embrace as her mother sighs a soft _hello_ into her hair. 

Then Camila pulls back with her hands still on Luz’s shoulders to look her in the eye, devastatingly hopeful. “Did you make any friends at school today?” 

A crack splits her heart. “No, mami,” Luz has to tell her, hating the way that the answer makes her mother wilt, hating that she has nothing better for her than an unspoken apology, “Not today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay now time for NOTES… uh sorry luz is sad for now. she meets gus and willow soon i promise. writing the last part was so weird bc my mother is a nurse and during covid times she'd rather die than touch me before she’s like dunked herself in rubbing alcohol
> 
> Luz: hi ur pretty sorry for accidentally blasting pretty rave girl at full volume in the middle of your important speech in front of everyone  
> Amity, cocking a gun: some crimes can never be forgiven 
> 
> Don’t know if it was clear enough in the fic but i gave human king vitiligo! can't believe I haven't seen anyone do this! Imagine the skull shaped marking potential bro!!!
> 
> Also i can’t promise any sort of update schedule school is killing me i will just Get To This When I Get To It. blows u a kiss thank you for reading this far!! comment or kudos to inject pure serotonin into my veins 
> 
> (OH ALSO [my writing blog is over here](https://lunati0ns.tumblr.com/) if you want to talk to me ok bye)


	2. when the lights turn out, you'll finally see everyone's alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A confrontation, a small misstep, and a conversation continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to everyone who commented!! U have no idea how happy and inspired it makes me to check my email and find that someone left one ;u; you are all so so nice, they really inspire me to write and sometimes they’re the best thing about my day… its free dopamine 
> 
> Also shoutout to the person who corrected me on my spanish last chapter akshf i confused azure for azul! like some kind of fool! if you ever see those kind of language mistakes here please do not hesitate to tell me i am so bad at languages and do not want to bastardize one so pretty. (thats the only thing you’re welcome to correct me on unless i write something that directly hurts your feelings in the not fun way or portrays something harmful <3 no literary critiques please i do this for fun) 
> 
> [(chapter title is from don’t let go by past life)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghB3HrFitxY)

When Luz goes to school the next day, it’s pretty much the same as the first. No one talks to her, and she doesn’t really talk to anyone else, as much as she wants to. She’d love to try with the junior she saw yesterday, but they don’t really walk the same halls, so… Luz just doesn't see her.

She goes to her classes. Pays as much attention as she can. Sits alone at lunch again, gets a head start on the little work that they’ve given so far instead of struggling to navigate her thoughts. Just keeps her head down. 

Until she gets to the English. 

She expects to be the first one in the room when she gets inside. Luz knew from experience that other kids liked to mess around with their friends in the hallways for as long as possible before they submitted to going to their next period. Since she had no one to talk to and usually went from one class to another with no pauses in between, that was usually the case. 

She’s surprised that this time, it isn’t. Luz walks by the front row and there the prefect, Amity, sits, posture straight and eyes lidded as she scribbled into a notebook -- there isn’t anyone else with them, not even the girl that had sat next to her the day before. 

Amity doesn’t look up when she passes, but Luz finds her gait becoming stiff and awkward anyway as she goes to her own desk. 

Easing her messenger bag off her shoulder, Luz presses her lips together and side-eyes Amity’s back. They hadn’t really had… the best meeting yesterday. Just remembering how Amity had regarded her made Luz cringe -- she didn’t want  _ that  _ to be her relationship with someone she’d have to see twice every day for the next few months. Maybe if she apologizes it’ll be nothing more than water under the bridge. 

After a couple seconds of hyping herself up, Luz goes back to stand in front of Amity’s desk. “Hey!” She greets, smiling and giving a little wave. 

Amity looks up, an annoyed tilt to her mouth. “What.” 

Not the warmest reception, but okay. “So, I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday!” Luz says, stubbornly hanging onto her good-natured tone. She holds out her hand to Amity to offer a handshake. “I’m Luz! You’re Amity, r--” 

“Ugh, put that away!” Amity hisses before Luz can finish, smacking the olive branch aside. 

Luz blinks in surprise and cradles her rejected hand against her chest, wounded. 

Before she can respond any further Amity stands, pushing her chair back and her face so close to Luz’s that they’re almost nose to nose. “I have no interest in getting all buddy-buddy with a troublemaker like you! I don’t know  _ what _ you were doing yesterday, or if Ed and Em put you up to it --” 

“Uh, who?” Luz interjects weakly, leaning precariously backward.

“Nevermind! What I do know is if you ever get in my way again, if you ever  _ humiliate  _ me like that again, I will do everything I can to make your life a living hell. I’d love to show you all the ways I could, both as a prefect and as a Blight.” The words are practically a snarl as Amity jabs her finger hard into the middle of Luz’s chest to punctuate her words, green eyes narrow. “Got it?!” 

Luz swallows roughly with a nervous laugh. “Aye, aye, captain! I’ll just, uh, go now,” she says, then turns on a heel and flees to her seat. 

_ Well, that was a bust, _ she thinks as she glumly falls into her chair. She didn’t even get the chance to apologize before Amity jumped down her throat. Great job on her part, already managing to make someone hate her guts. 

How long would it be before everyone in this class, then in all of her classes, followed suit? Eventually, it’d get to be strangers in the hallways sticking gum in her hair just because they heard she was a weirdo who was fun to pick on. 

Just as Luz starts to sink into the thought that maybe there really wasn’t any hope for her, a splash of color against the dark wall catches her eye, and she turns to see the tower of cubbies, white paper tucked safely away in every single one of them. 

She gasps, straightening and whirling around. How could she forget about her pen pal-- their letter! Her eyes anxiously scan the pigeonholes until she finds the one that she was assigned yesterday and, yes, there! 

Stretching over without getting up, Luz plucks her envelope from the little space. Maybe she’s only imagining it, but she’s sure the paper tingles in her hands. 

Luz lets out a little squeal despite herself, ignores the shushing  coming from the only occupied front desk, and rips the envelope open. Inside it is a lined paper, folded neatly and carefully. When Luz undoes it she finds it reads, in incredibly neat and loopy, calligraphy-like handwriting: 

_ To whom it may concern,  _

_ I hope this letter finds you well. I fully intend to fulfill my part of this assignment as it is meant to be done, so I expect you to not cheat your way through it for a couple of extra points.  _

_ I like reading in my spare time, and I play a team sport, though I suppose I can’t tell you exactly which one. I’m a freshman, and I have two older siblings. They’ve taken this class before, and they did tell me that this teacher is a little… out there, but I didn’t expect to be given an assignment like this.  _

_ Well. I’m not quite sure what else there is to write here, with so little to go off of. I look forward to receiving your message tomorrow.  _

They want to keep writing to her.  _ And _ despite saying they're a freshman they write like a little businessperson -- the tone is that of a person who's prim and proper and no fun at all. 

Luz, biting down on a wide grin, is immediately hopelessly endeared. 

But what really makes her heart jump into her throat is the name on the very last line.

_ From, Hecate. _

_ Hecate.  _ “Like from--?!” Luz blurts aloud, then clamps her hand over her mouth. She peeks over the top of her paper and a few kids raise their brows back at her-- she was so engrossed in reading that she hadn’t even noticed others beginning to fill in the seats.

Luz gives them a sheepish, lopsided grin through her fingers then quickly ducks her head back to the paper. 

Her heart flutters against her breastbone as she rereads the name, over and over. Hecate, like the character from  _ Azura?  _ Could it really be?

If it is and they were made Luz’s partner by pure chance, then it's fate,  _ destiny  _ that brought them together in the only way it was able, so they could get to know each other and become best friends forever and then maybe eventually go to conventions together and--

And hold  _ on _ a second, Luz. She startles when she realizes the speed of her racing train of thought, stumbling to get a hold on her own reins and yank them back.  _ Slow down. _ She has to remember what she promised herself and what Reality Check taught her, she said wouldn’t do this anymore! Fantasies like that never came true, and she has to keep her feet on the ground. It’s not like the Good Witch Azura is the only place where the name Hecate shows up, she firmly reasons with herself. There could be a million other explanations as to why her partner chose to call themselves that.

It’s… It’s stupid to get so excited over something this small. Luz ignores the pang that sends aching through her chest and instead focuses on thinking about her new potential friend. 

Even if they turned out to not like Azura, they still have things in common. The reading (what kind of books did they like to read, if not convoluted fantasy ones?), and a team sport, and Luz knows she’s not supposed to try and figure out who they are, but come  _ on, _ there’s no way to avoid wondering about it! Her mother had asked her to try out for the cheerleading team again when they opened, despite the disaster it was when she tried last time. What if that’s the team they’re on? She’s a little more excited about the idea of trying out because of it, and very, very excited about writing back. 

Just as Luz twists to reach into her bag and grab a pen and paper, Mrs. Fay clears her throat. Luz’s attention is drawn to the whiteboard where she stands. 

“Ah, before you start your responses! I forgot to mention it beforehand, but I’ll be putting up optional daily prompts to write to your partner about, to help the whole  _ getting to know each other  _ thing along.” 

Oh. That sounds pretty useful, actually. 

“For today’s prompt, since it’s your very first one, we have something simple!” Mrs. Fay clicks the projector on with a flourish, and the words on the otherwise blank slide flash into view:  _ Describe your best friend.  _

Aaaand Luz suddenly feels like she’s swallowed lead. 

That... is not an ideal first question! The whole reason she’s so excited about this project in the first place is that she doesn’t  _ have _ any friends, nevermind a best one, but she can’t just  _ tell _ Hecate that. Especially not right after they’ve just, however technically, met. Luz wants so badly to make a good first impression on at least one person, and there’s no way they won’t think she’s a total loser if she lets them know. What kind of freak didn’t even have  _ one _ friend? 

... It’s not like she has to, either. The prompts are completely optional. She can brush right past this without acknowledging it at all with no repercussions.

But the entire point of the letters is to get to know one another. She honestly wants that, so she shouldn’t make it harder to do that by hiding obvious facts about herself. 

Luz lets out a quiet, shaky little sigh. Then, jaw set with determination, she curls over her blank paper and starts to write. 

_ To Hecate,  _

_ Since you haven’t done anything like this before, I guess that answers my question about if Hexside always has these kinds of assignments. Darn. But yeah, it is pretty unique, and I think it seems really fun! I’m having fun already, at least. :D _

Luz’s hand stills. Is it weird to put a smiley in a handwritten letter…? 

Oh well, she’s writing in pen. Onwards! 

_ Looks like we have a lot in common! I like reading and I play a sport too! That has to do with the liking doing backflips thing I mentioned, but that’s the only hint you’ll get about what sport it is. >:3 I don’t know if I’ll get accepted onto the team at Hexside, but I’ll be trying out for it whenever they open. Wouldn’t it be funny if we ended up on the same one without knowing it?  _

Now comes the not so fun part. 

_ So! For today’s prompt. This is pretty embarrassing to admit, but I don’t really have any friends, nevermind a best one. _

She frowns at the page. Then, in a decisive stroke, she adds,  _ I never have.  _ Might as well go all in. 

_~~At my old school no one really~~ _

~~_ Everyone kind of hated  _ ~~

~~_ They had more fun with me if they _ __ ~~

Luz wants to rip out her hair. Why is this so  _ hard,  _ suddenly? 

_ I guess if you forced me to pick someone I’d say my mom is my best friend! She’s not perfect but she’s been there for me since day one and I don’t know what I’d do without her, I love her more than anything.  _

That sounds a little pathetic. Oh god, why did she do this in pen? Should she rewrite it on a different piece of paper? She doesn’t think she has the spine to write something this embarrassing twice.  __

_ Anyways!!!!!!!!!!!!!  _ Luz scribbles exclamation points until she stops feeling so flustered.  _ Sorry to be a downer!!! Anyways, hat kind of books do you like to read? Any recommendations?  _

_ From, Azure _

She scribbles down her signature, hurriedly folds up the letter, packs it into the envelope, then hurls it into her space so she doesn’t have to look at it anymore. Agh!

* * *

There’s no envelope in her cubby. 

Luz checks the space thoroughly, sticks her hand all the way into the back, but there’s nothing at all inside to grab onto. 

Hecate didn't reply.

It’s hard to swallow past the lump in her throat as she falls back into her chair, shocked and smarting. Did she ruin it somehow already? Hecate shouldn’t have even gotten her second letter until today -- was the first one enough to drive them off? 

Luz wracks her brain trying to remember what she wrote, but her mind is buzzing with too much distress and sharp disappointment for her to think straight. There has to be a different explanation. Luz couldn’t have said something that bad that quickly, not when she was trying so, so hard to seem normal and okay. 

...Right? 

But maybe there isn’t a different explanation at all. It wouldn't be the first time she'd unwittingly chased off a potential friend, even when she was trying her best. And she  _ did  _ mention the whole... friendless thing. 

Hecate probably took that as a sign that she shouldn’t waste any time on her, if no one else could be bothered. Or maybe Luz is just so awful and annoying that Hecate could sense it even through a meeting even this indirect, and maybe Luz couldn’t hide or tuck that fact of herself away, no matter how hard she tried. 

She can’t... Hah. She can’t think like this. If she does she’ll start crying, surrounded by people smiling at their own papers, having a perfectly wonderful time with their partners, and an even better time with their friends. 

Luz shakes herself off like a wet dog then digs her hand inside her bag to root around for her notebook and pencils, resolving to start her work early and not write a letter today. 

She just won’t think about it. It’s alright. It’s alright. 

* * *

Luz is afraid to look in her cubby. 

If it’s empty again for the second day in a row, she can’t even anticipate how much it’ll hurt -- because that means she’s completely spoiled her chance at making friends with Hecate, and that she’ll never be able to get to know them at all. If they already dislike her from one letter, then... 

She peeks anyway. 

And then she feels a heart stuttering shock of thrill when she finds there  _ is  _ one, laying softly on the wood inside for her. 

There’s an actual letter. They wrote back.  _ They wrote back! _

Quickly grabbing it, Luz tears the seal open, lets the paper fall out, then stops.

What is it going to say? What if they have so many friends that they couldn't even pick just one, and Luz has to read pages and pages of them describing something she desperately wants and can't have? Or will they just brush past it without at all addressing how much she shared? 

She isn’t sure which would be worse. 

Luz unfolds the paper. 

_ To Azure,  _

_ Hello. It’s nice to have a name to put a… well. Not a face, but a presence, I suppose. _

_ I apologize for neglecting to reply beforehand. I failed to do my part of the project, even after instructing you to take it seriously. That was wrong of me. It was just that the prompt, about describing your best friend, was… difficult. I couldn’t think of how to answer, so I wasn’t planning to respond.  _

_ Until I read your letter, that is. I don’t understand why you would be so willing to share something like that with someone who is essentially a stranger. Anyhow, due to my misstep and your forthrightness, I feel that I owe you a real answer.  _

_ I don’t have any friends, either.  _

Wait. What? Luz brings the paper closer to her face, squints at it because there’s no way she just read that right. 

_ Or, it'd be more apt to say I don't have any  _ **_real_ ** _ friends. It’s not like I’m completely alone. There are people that I sit with at lunch, but I don’t really… talk to them. They don’t really talk to me. We don't enjoy each other. I’m not being self-conscious or overly prideful when I say the people I’m referring to don’t stay by my side out of any real affection -- more because reasons outside of our control force us to be together, and because they receive benefits from being seen with me.  _

_ I have my siblings, but our relationship isn’t close at all -- nowhere near how close they are to each other. They just like to annoy me more than anything.  _

_ I suppose I was embarrassed to admit it. What kind of person doesn’t have even one friend?  _

Oh, Luz thinks, and the anxieties spiraling in her head slow to a stop, instead float gently, feather-like, down to rest on the floor, and a warm glow replaces them instead. She and Hecate were worried about the exact same thing. 

_ There used to be someone I considered a best friend when I was very young but we’re not on speaking terms, these days. I don’t really have anyone anymore.  _

_ And… That’s all I have to say. I apologize, again. I hope my returned honesty is a fitting enough consolatory gift.  _

_ From, Hecate _

In a flash, Luz has a blank sheet of paper pulled onto her desk. She doesn’t even think before she writes. 

_ To Hecate,  _

_ Hi!! I’m so glad you wrote back! :D I’ll admit, at first I was pretty worried when you didn’t respond, but you did in the end so don’t worry about it at all! _

_ If I’m being honest I was really nervous about telling you, but I wanted to take getting to know you seriously like you asked me to! I guess I didn’t have anything to worry about, huh?  _

_ I don’t mean this in like, a mean sort of ‘haha i’m glad you’re suffering too grr!!’ way, but I’m… kind of really glad you can relate. I hope that makes sense. It makes me feel less alone. I hope I can make you feel like that, too. _

~~_ Maybe we could be f _ ~~

_ I’m sorry you lost your best friend, and I wish you didn’t have to. That must have hurt a lot. :( _

_ What was your friend like? Do you have any good memories of them? _

_ From, Azure _

* * *

_ To Azure,  _

_ She was… sweet. She was really kind, and sort of clumsy, but I always had a lot of fun with her, more than with anyone else I’d ever met.  _

_ … I miss her a lot.  _

_ We went to the same camp for a couple of summers. One time, down at the beach -- _

* * *

After that, there are no more hiccups. Luz and Hecate exchange letters every day, and Luz doesn’t think she’s ever had so much fun just  _ talking _ to someone, has never spoken to anyone who wasn't basically her mother, Eda, or King, for such an extended period of time and in such a genuine way. It’s only been a little while but Luz is already starting to believe one side over another in terms of the question Mrs. Fay proposed -- it is possible to get to know a person through words alone. 

Just through this, Luz has already had a picture of Hecate painted in her head; someone who writes like she's eighty years old, who’s cautious and wary, but who’ll open up with little prompting if the prodding hand is careful enough. 

Someone lonely, just like her. 

She soon finds out that that’s not the only way they’re alike. To Luz’s complete surprise, after about a week of carefully probing letters, just after she's begun to settle into the routine of asking after Hecate’s likes and dislikes and basic daily life and having Hecate ask about hers, it’s Hecate who brings up the Good Witch books first. 

_ You know, it’s funny, our name’s almost match,  _ her partner writes.  _ Or well, they do if you’ve read this book series I like -- The Good Witch Azura. Azura is the main character and Hecate is her ally. It’s… well. It’s kind of geeky, but you asked for recommendations a little while ago, right? Good Witch is my all time favorite.  _

Luz’s brain whites out and she loses all sense. 

The need to be liked and seen as normal is torn to ribbons in a second flat, ripping who she is at her very core into view, and suddenly there is nothing left inside of her but the single-minded,  _ laser _ focus of a rabid nerd who has found another of her own kind. __

_ To Hecate,  _

_ HI WHAT? HI? I LOVE AZURA? I LOVE AZURA SO MUCH??? I CALLED MYSELF AZURE BECAUSE AZURA IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER IN THE HISTORY OF EVER?!?! _

_ Oh my god this is so amazing!!!! I’ve never met someone in real life who’s actually read them before, I have so many questions! Which book is your favorite? Are you caught up to Daughter of the Wyverns?! Are you on the side of the Scourgebringers or the Warriors of Peace? >:0!!! _

It’s only after she’s sealed the envelope that she realizes she probably should have held back her excitement a little, but in her response Hecate doesn’t shy away from her tone. In fact, she responds in kind. 

_ To Azure,  _

_ I’ve never met someone who’s read it either!  _

(This is, Luz thinks with an excited wiggle, the first time Hecate has ever used an exclamation point in any of their letters!)

_ I think I like the first book the most, The Serpent Seer? It was what made me fall in love with the series, after all. I always like to go back and reread it when I’m feeling down.  _

_ I am caught up with the latest book, yes. That cliffhanger was really brutal, wasn’t it? I’m sure that the author won’t really let Pasiphae die (if she does, I’ll be writing a very strongly worded email), but it still put me right on the edge of my seat.  _

_ I’m on the side of the Warriors, obviously. I’m not an edgelord.  _

_ And Hecate is just one of my favorites. I relate to her a lot. However, my absolute favorite has to be Malin Gale the Soothsayer. They’re… really cool.  _

Huh. Is that so? Luz can’t help the mischievous smirk that crosses her face as she writes her response.

* * *

_ To Hecate,  _

_ Wow, Malin Gale? So you like the mysterious type, huh? <:3c  _

_ From, Azure _

* * *

_ To Azure,  _

_ Shut!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! _

_ From, Hecate _

Luz bites back a cackle. Tease success! 

* * *

And just like that, Azura becomes the topic they discuss the most. It sort of feels like when Luz argues with people about her book opinions on online forums. The difference is that Hecate is way less horribly, terribly wrong (about everything but how Pasiphae's totally permadead, c’mon, killing her would make so much narrative sense and would raise the stakes so well, but Hecate refuses to consider the idea because of the sheer character grief it causes her, which Luz can honestly understand), and something about it feels more real and immediate, even though it takes her a full 24 hours for her to get any response. 

Even with the delay, instead of being who knows how many miles away, Luz knows that the person who shares her passion walks the same halls as she does, maybe even sits in the same class. She doesn't know how many times she's thought about that fact and had to stop whatever she's doing, just to marvel at it. She has someone to talk to, who can actually relate to her, and they’re so close. It's surreal. It's amazing.

But the thing is, she doesn’t know  _ who  _ it is she's talking to, and that's  _ maddening.  _

When she’s not working, Luz takes to glancing around the room at her classmates to play at figuring out which one Hecate is through pure force of will. Talking through the letters is nice, is incredible, even, but she desperately wants to speak with Hecate about their shared love of the book face to face, to see if she would grin as widely as Luz does when recounting an epic battle, or tear up when remembering an emotional scene, or maybe if she would even blush when Luz teased her about her crush, obvious even through written word, on Malin Gael. 

She’s doing it now, instead of focusing on Mrs. Fay’s lecture. Chin resting on her propped arm, her gaze lingers on the back of every one of her classmate’s heads, and she squints at them contemplatively for a couple seconds each before moving on. 

She pauses on a head of pitch-black hair at the very front of the room, hovers over this thought for a second longer than she did the others. 

Hey, wouldn’t it be weird if…? 

As though Amity could feel Luz’s attention on her, she turns her head -- and their eyes meet. A spark of electricity jumps between them and strikes Luz’s spine, making her sit up straight then go completely still, as she always does beneath the prefect’s scrutiny. 

Amity glares, lip rising in a sneer to show one white tooth, and looks away, utterly dismissive. 

Luz slumps against her desk, heart beating hard. 

Ha. Yeah, no, it’s definitely not Amity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> someone : do you have… any coping mechanisms?  
> Luz: ya of course?  
> Luz when hecate didn't respond to her letter, alone in her room at 3 a.m. that night, breakdancing sadly:[ if i keep on moving](https://www.tiktok.com/@iflumpus/video/6886961001841822981?lang=en) than the pain goes away and if i don’t stop moving than the pain cannot stay and if i keep on grooving than the pain won’t catch ME AND IF I K--
> 
> Also do u guys remember when amity literally smacked luz’s hand away like UGH PUT THAT AWAY in covention. that was so funny she’s so dramatic whats wrong w u bud
> 
> Anyways!! I got this chapter out in pretty good time. Im gonna like… try for updates once every week or two…. Do not hold me to that though :] hope you had fun reading remember to kudos comment and or talk to me on [my blog](https://lunati0ns.tumblr.com/) to keep me alive if u want


	3. the end result of my own reckless impulsivity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Luz tries out and makes some new friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [rolls in on heelies] hello lgbt community this update took me out back and tried to put me down but i won the death battle eventually. What is left of the carnage stands before u now… in the form of a chapter that i dont like all that much and that isn’t the most exciting but that MUST BE POSTED SO WE CAN MOVE ON TO THE FUNNER THINGS. LETS GO
> 
> (also thank you all for your comments and for being patient w/ me :] responding to all of them is overwhelming but please know i reread them when im sad or uninspired. i love u!) 
> 
> title is from [friends with you by the scary jokes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ksz2YqWGAc)

After English, Band is quickly becoming Luz’s second favorite class. It was one of the ones that her mother pleaded with her to sign up for, swearing up and down that it was a fantastic way to meet people, and that Luz would have fun learning to play a new instrument. 

She doesn’t know about the meeting people part so far, but, despite the fact that they don’t do much but learn theory for the first few periods (all while waiting for the much hyped  _ Try-out Day,  _ where they would actually be able to touch and try out real instruments for the first time), Luz finds that she _ is  _ having fun. 

She enjoys learning about different types of notes and rhythms, and how you have to buzz your lips to make a sound in a brass instrument and not just blow, and she  _ especially _ likes showing off what admittedly little she’s learned to Hecate, who at least seemed impressed. (She’d tried and failed to keep her giggles silent when receiving her first written  _ that’s so cool! _ ’s from her friend.) 

Try-out Day comes around before long. Luz goes to the band room and finds that all of the chairs have been moved to the back, leaving a ton of space in the middle, which is all occupied by strangers manning different stations-- each with a unique instrument that she was encouraged to try. 

While they were waiting for the day to come along, Luz had been thinking of choosing the saxophone or trombone because everyone knows those are the funniest instruments, but… 

She stops by the man with the trumpet first. With a quick greeting, he cleans off the mouthpiece and hands the instrument to her, carefully directing her on how to hold it properly. She marvels at it for a moment. It’s pretty, shiny enough that can see her face reflected in the bronze metal. 

Then she takes in a deep breath, presses her lips together, squeezes her eyes shut, and blows into it as hard as she can. The resulting blast sounds like she'd knocked an elephant into a wind turbine, the discordant screech filling the entire room and knocking all the thoughts loose in her head. 

When Luz withdraws breathlessly and opens her eyes, they’re gleaming with unrestrained joy.

* * *

Luz bounces excitedly in her newly assigned seat, placed in the middle of what’s now the trumpet section. 

She found out yesterday that the noise she made was actually called  _ blasting,  _ and was in fact not what you’re supposed to do if you’re trying to make music, but she didn’t, and still doesn’t, care. Sorry saxophones and trombones! Turns out that trumpets are off the charts delightful and the only thing she wants to be playing at all hours of the day. 

The band director, a large and bearded man named Mr. Neptune, finishes walking them through their tuning notes at that very moment. “Alright!” he says, raising his conducting baton into the air. “Let’s try to get through some scales.” 

While they're playing, the director's smile becomes more and more pinched, and by the time they're done he's sporting something closer to a grimace. 

“...Well.” Mr. Neptune lowers his baton with a little laugh as he rubs at his temples. “That sure was… noise! But don’t worry guys,  _ everyone  _ sounds awful at first.” 

“Aw, I thought it was okay that time,” Luz mutters to herself, pouting as she lowered her horn. Instead of sounding like an elephant being thrown into a wind turbine, it was like,  _ just  _ an elephant. Though she guesses that altogether their section probably just sounded like a stampeding herd. Hm. 

Someone laughs at her side and says, “I thought we sounded pretty cool.” 

“Right?!” Luz exclaims, turning to face them and finding that they’re a much shorter boy-- who all in all sort of reminds her of King, if King were just a little bigger, wasn’t covered in light patches, and had darker eyes. This kid has a much less mischievous look to him, too.

“Oh, hi! I’m- uh,” Hold on. Luz discreetly glances at the teacher, but luckily he’s distracted explaining how not to sound like nails on a chalkboard to the clarinets. Phew. Relieved, she continues, “I’m Luz! What’s your name?” 

“Augustus!” The boy says, then puts out a hand for her to shake. “Pleasure to meet you.” With an amused snort she complies, giving him a handshake alongside a showy bow that makes him laugh again. The fancy greeting kind of reminds her of Hecate’s stiff writing style. Is everyone at Hexside so formal? 

“Right back ‘atcha! Y’know, I used to know another Augustus at my middle school. Everyone called him Gus, though.” Would a nickname like that be too casual for someone as  _ fancy  _ as a Hexside student?

“Wooooah…!” Apparently not, because Augustus looks at her like she’s just pointed out a new star in the sky. “A cool older kid nickname… Can you-- Would you call  _ me  _ that?” 

“Aw yeah, of course!” Luz agrees easily, earning a muted little cheer from him, but... Hey, wait. “What do you mean ‘older’? Aren’t you a freshman too?” 

“Well, yeah, technically. But!” Gus does jazz hands, trumpet laid across his lap. “I’m  _ also  _ twelve.” 

Now it’s her turn to gape. Now that she thinks about it, he is short, but still! “Woah, seriously?” 

“Yup!” Gus preens. “ _ I _ skipped a grade.” 

Luz feels a need to ooh and aah so she does, leaning forward. “Woooah! You must be smart then!” 

Gus blinks in surprise then chuckles, rubbing at the back of his neck with a free hand, like he hadn’t expected her to actually be impressed. “O-Oh, thanks! Usually everyone knows that I have already, but I guess that’s because we’ve all known each other for awhile. I don’t know you, though! Are you new here?” 

Guess she was right about everyone already being familiar with each other. Luz nods. “Yup. It’s my first year here, just transferred.” 

“Cool! How do you--” 

Gus is interrupted by the  _ click, click, clack  _ of Mr. Neptune’s little stick smacking onto his music stand, prompting them both to fall silent, raise their trumpets back to their mouths and cast their eyes forward. 

“Hey,” Gus whispers from her side right before they inhale. “If you ever need anything, just ask me. I know what it’s like to be new.” 

The sentiment is so kind and welcoming and entirely unexpected that Luz misses the opening note. 

And to her delight, that isn’t the last time that she and Gus talk. 

That first conversation seems to have, well, not opened a floodgate, but cracked it open just enough to let the first dregs of water trickle through. They chat every day during class when they’re not being directed, have quiet conversations mostly only covering which notes are which and how to not sound like a truck horn, but in between that she finds out that he works on the school paper and really, really likes photography. She thinks that they’re on their way to becoming friends. 

She  _ thinks.  _ Hesitant to push it, doing her best to hold herself back like she’s been painstakingly taught all summer long, she doesn’t ask for anything that’s not freely offered even though he’s told her she can, does not talk too much, doesn’t describe much of herself or any of her weird interests and hobbies, and doesn’t dare to approach him outside of band.

If she’s lucky, like now, they wave to each other in the hallways. Gus spots her from across the way and hops in place to be seen over the sea of taller students separating them as he frantically waves both at her with both arms in a way that distinctly reminds her of an air traffic controller. 

Snorting, she grins and waves back as she walks by. Once he’s around the corner she does a little secret fist pump, like she does every time he notices her outside of class. 

Her mom would be so proud of her if she knew. And  _ speaking  _ of things her mom would be proud of her for --

Bright color in corner of her eye make her pause midstep, and she looks over to see a poster stapled on the wall. On it is a smiling stick figure drawn midleap with pom poms shaking in each hand. Above the drawing,  _ CHEER TEAM TRYOUTS OPEN TODAY!  _ is written in big, blocky letters, with things like the starting time and meeting place below it in smaller font.

Luz takes out her phone to snap a picture of the poster’s information, then opens her messages. 

**Luz** _ [1:22 p.m.] _

eda!!! 

could u pick me up from school a little later today? 

**Eda** _ [1:23 p.m.] _

**👌**

* * *

  
Luz, outfitted in a borrowed school t-shirt and shorts rather than her stuffy uniform, bounces in place on the football field sideline. Cool autumn wind buffets her face and hair, and she restlessly smooths a hand over the sticky note pasted to her front to keep it from blowing away, managing to only smudge the number  _ 15  _ written on it in still-wet sharpie instead. 

She grimaces at her stained hand then discretely wipes the mark off on her shorts-- they’re black anyways so no one will notice, right?-- and glances around at the other people surrounding her in the line they stand in, all wearing similar clothes. She idly wonders if Hecate could be standing anywhere on this field, so close to her without her even knowing it; but she feels no sort of recognition when her eyes scan each person. Maybe it’s a long shot to try and identify her partner on sight alone. 

Anyway, everyone else has sticky notes and numbers too. The way they’re doing auditions at Hexside is already unfamiliar; first, because they’re outside instead of in the gymnasium (there had been some mix up about the Key Club having already claimed it or something) and second, because at her middle school, they were all expected to go up one by one and debut their original dance routines to impress the judges, which Luz… had not prepared beforehand. 

See: flipping eyelids trick. That hadn’t gone over well, in retrospect. 

(She hadn’t prepared one this time either, so it’s a relief that this is how Hexside does things, or else she probably would’ve panicked and started improvising again. Maybe this time show off how double-jointed she is.)

Instead of having to make their own routines all they have to do is watch the cheerleaders do a short, already approved dance, and then copy that from memory and wow hold on a second Luz should probably be watching what they’re doing instead of zoning out. 

The song lulls and the co-captains of the team pop out of a finishing pose in tandem just as she refocuses. Uh oh. 

“Alright! That didn’t look so hard, did it?” One captain, the one who had introduced himself as Edric, says with a roguish wink. 

Luz wouldn’t know! She wasn’t watching any of it!

“And now it’s your turn,” The other near identical captain, Emira, announces with a cheshire grin as she crouches to restart the song on the stereo at her feet, then claps in time to the ensuing rhythm. “5, 6, 7, 8!” 

Luz hurries to fall in step and... dances. For the most part. 

She does, while not the  _ right  _ poses,  _ some  _ poses, and that (alongside her enthusiasm) has to count for something. The kicks she throws in for flavor only get her neighbor in the shins a couple times, even-- but that works out alright because her mildly injuring them makes her recall that they’re there, and she’s able abandon her reckless flailing and start copying their  _ maybe _ more accurate movements halfway through. 

Throughout the routine, Edric circles the line like a shark, occasionally noting things down on a clipboard he’s carrying. When he passes Luz by she takes a glance at it, and is tickled to find that he’s just doodling a shark in a top hat.

What’s far less funny is Emira, still sitting on the ground next to the boombox. The way she tilts her head to curiously watch them, chin resting on the tops of her knees and hands, is cutting and distinctly predatorial despite the ease of her smirk-- puts a pressure on Luz when her gaze momentarily passes over her. The sensation is familiar in a way that she can’t put a finger on. 

Once they’re finished, Luz slouches over with her hands on her knees to catch her breath as Edric bounces back over to Emira’s side. “Well, Em, what d’you think?” 

Emira hums, getting up. “Number 15!” 

Luz freezes. 

“You… were fun to watch.” 

Oh! That’s not too bad, if a little backhanded? “Thank... you?”

Edric nods seriously, squinting at his clipboard. "Have to agree, Em. Number 7, great job! I think you were the only one to do the whole thing without messing up.”

Luz’s compliment sort of paled in comparison to that. She leans forward, peering down the line to see who earned the words as the twins move on with their commentary, and sees that number 7 is a mousy, chubby-cheeked girl with cute circular glasses and bouncy short hair. She looks very surprised and even more pleased at the compliment. 

Or at least, she looks that way until a not so whispered jeer pours down from the stands behind them. “Aww look, even Willow can score some pity points. How cute!”

Frowning, Luz turns to follow the voice to its source and jolts as she finds that the previously empty seats are dotted with people. Some that she recognizes, including Boscha, the snide girl from her English class, and--

_ “Amity?!” _ she blurts out in a whispered yell.

At Boscha's side, Amity sits with her legs neatly folded, swiping at her phone on her knee and wholly disinterested in the show. Luz’s mind whirls. Why are they even--?

Emira pointedly raises a brow. “Boscha, remember how we said that the football team could only watch the tryouts if they didn’t distract anyone?” 

The football team? Now that Emira’s said that, Luz does notice that a few of them, Amity included, are wearing burgundy colored letterman jackets with what she assumes are their initials sewed into the front, and understanding clicks into place. But it also doesn’t, because the  _ prefect _ is on the  _ football  _ team? High school movie tropes never prepared her for this?

"Yeah,  _ Boscha,"  _ Amity snarks, even as she neglects to look up from her phone. "She has enough trouble doing anything right. We shouldn't make it harder for her." 

Boscha snickers as she slumps backwards, shoving one hand into the pocket of her jacket and miming zipping her mouth shut with the other. 

But when Luz looks back to number 7, Willow, she sees that the damage is already done. The girl's posture droops akin to a plant unwatered, gaze fallen onto the grass. 

Edric solemnly clicks his pen closed and hands it to Emira, who seamlessly tucks it behind her ear, then gives his clipboard to her as well. "Aaalright!" He announces, stretching his arms above his head. "Now for part two of the tryout. For this part, we're gonna call you all up and see if you can do any backflips or tumbling or whatever. 7, since you impressed me you can go first. You got anything?" 

"Uh." Willow grimaces minutely, eyes darting away. More laughter floats down from behind them, and even though it's quieter this time, it makes her cringe. Still, she grits her teeth and stands up straight with an undercurrent of steel Luz is surprised to see after her first impression. "No, I don't. Sorry." 

"See?" And she can  _ hear  _ the unkindness in Amity's tone, the smirk, without having to look at her. "What did I tell you?"

Edric just shrugs. "Eh, no problem. Hey, number 8, how about you?" 

It's hard to pay attention to her turn coming up when she’s watching how sadly Willow steps out of the lineup to stand on the sidelines, turned away from the seats and from the bullies.

Irritated and concerned, Luz clenches her fists at her sides. Willow did so well and had looked so happy just a few seconds before, and they just-- they just  _ ruined _ it like nothing, and she's intimately familiar with their type. Vultures latching onto whatever they saw as weak with cruel talons and digging in until they drew blood. When Luz looks at Willow all she can see is herself, and it makes her wish that they'd find their kicks in something, anything, else. 

And hey, that's an idea. Luz narrows her eyes thoughtfully. Why didn't she  _ give _ them something else to laugh at? 

Because, see, Luz  _ knows _ how to do acrobatics, front and backflips, that sort of thing-- Her mother had put her in gymnastics classes when she was young in an attempt to direct her energy towards other things so that she’d be less disruptive in class. The making her less disruptive part didn’t work all that well, but she'd taken to the rest of the sport, and the cheapest gymnastics teacher a single mother could find, Eda, like a duck to water. 

But no one here knows that, and that experience means that she’s pretty sure she knows how to mess up royally  _ without _ breaking her neck. She pretty much failed the first segment already, so there's no harm in throwing the rest of it away if it helps someone, right? Right.

"Hey, 15!" Edric calls, making her look up. "You got anything?" 

"Sure do!" Luz responds with a broad grin and steps out of the line.

* * *

“PFFTHA--  _ W-Wow! _ ” Emira says, the words strangled from the open delight written all over her face. “That was spectacular...ly bad! I’m like, kind of impressed! Holy shit!” 

Nothing but an icohorent wheeze of a laugh escapes Edric when he tries to weigh in, and he’s stuck leaning on his sister to keep from laughing over with the force of his amusement. 

Meanwhile, Luz busies herself with peeling her face off the grass. She’s been prying her face off of lots of surfaces lately. God, she hopes this doesn’t bruise, she doesn’t know how she’d explain that to her mom, nevermind the fact that she'd gotten rejected from the team again. Maybe she should stop face planting into things, but she can’t argue that it works very well for her purposes. 

Instead of half-quieted sniggers coming from the stands like there’d been for Willow, her performance had earned full blown barks of laughter and jeering, and when she looks over, the expressions on the football teams faces span from vicious mockery to open awe that they’d managed to see such a complete trainwreck in real time. 

(It's a lot easier to weather being laughed at when you're trying to get that reaction on purpose, she's learned.)

Once she’s able to stand, she’s directed out of the line towards the other side of the field, where they’re supposed to wait once they’re done. Luz skips over and promptly plops down next to Willow, sitting on the ground, who looks at her with wide eyes. 

“Er, you have… uh.” Willow says, then stops, looking her up and down. Luz looks down at herself as well and finds that she’s covered in scratches and dirt. Ah, there are the previously unforeseen consequences. Hope she doesn’t get yelled at for turning her borrowed clothes in so messy after this. “Here, I’ll just--” A careful hand cards through her hair and when Luz looks back up, she realizes that Willow just brushed a pretty big amount of grass blades and dirt out of the dark curly locks. “There.” 

Oh, sweet. “Thanks!” 

“Mhm,” the girl murmurs distractedly, now focused on the scrape on her shin. “Are you okay?” 

She’s so  _ nice.  _ Luz has no regrets. “Oh, yeah I’m fine! I’m like... barely even bleeding. And besides, now they’ll laugh at me instead of you! Plan success!” 

The girl stares. “Plan succe-- Are you saying you did all of that on... purpose?”

Doubt creeps in. Maybe Willow didn’t appreciate someone butting in like she just did? “Well, yeah.” Luz scratches at her cheek, sending some dirt crumbling off, and can't help the self-conscious half-ramble she falls into. “I mean. They got on you for basically nothing, so I figured if I put on a real show they wouldn’t focus on you so much. Tumbling is the one thing that I’d be good at if I were an actual cheerleader, so I could do--” 

“Th-The whole double flip thing--?” Willow does a sort of rolling hand gesture to approximate the grand finale of her performance, the one that had ended with her receiving a mouthful of dirt.

She nods. “Yeah-- and not, y’know, die.” 

"That's... really cool." Willow says finally, a mellow smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. And then, with an amount of genuine warmth that makes Luz’s heart stutter, "Thank you for that. Can you do any other stuff?”

Luz returns the expression with a grin. “Oh yeah, tons!” Then, in a few quick and practiced moments, she stands and cartwheels over until she’s in a one armed handstand, free arm and leg splayed out so that her body makes the shape of a star. “Ta-da!” 

Willow giggles and claps appreciatively. “That’s so cool! Jeez, I wish I could do that. Maybe then I’d get on the team.”    


  
“What!” Luz gasps. “Did you even see how I was in the  _ first  _ part, nevermind the second? You’re totally getting in! They said you did really good with the dance, remember?”    
  


“I guess…” Willow still looks dubious. “But I couldn't do anything for the tumbling. And I mean, it’s alright if I don’t. I’m mostly here because my dads wanted me to see if I could meet people.” 

Luz nearly falls on her head, still upside down. “S-Same! I mean, it was my mom who wanted me to, but yeah, same!” She didn’t expect anyone else to be here for reasons that were the same as hers. “But still! You’re  _ totally  _ going to--” 

_ “Hey, 15!” _

Already shaken balance can’t hold up to a second surprise. With a yelp, Luz topples over onto her back. When her blurred vision clears, she sees that both Edric and Emira are standing over her, and the blue sky past their ducked heads.

“Get up for a second,” they say in unison. 

Luz scurries to obey, standing at attention. She hadn’t noticed them coming up behind her, had thought they were busy with everyone else’s performances, but now that she glances behind them she sees that there is no line of applicants on the other side of the field anymore, so she guesses that means everyone else is finished. That doesn't explain why they're talking to her now, though.

“What’s your name?” 

They’re still doing the talking at the same time thing. “Luz?” 

“You were doing a bunch of flips and shit earlier,” Emira starts. 

“And just then you were doing a handstand,” Edric finishes. “You have experience?” 

“Uh.” Luz is starting to sweat. “I’ve done gymnastics for a few years?” 

The twins study her with such intensity that Luz can’t help but fidget in place. Relief courses through her when they look to each other instead, conversing through nothing but looks and raised eyebrows. She glances back to Willow, confused, but all she gets is a shrug that’s just as helpless as she feels. 

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Emira says to her brother once their silent conversation is done.

“Mhm. Hey, Luz?” Edric’s tone is casual as he strides toward her with clear purpose glimmering in his eyes. “I’m going to pick you up now.” 

“Wh-- oka--  _ woah! _ ” Strong arms scoop her up easily, and Luz yelps as she’s casually tucked against the (very cute) boy’s chest, an immediate flush blooming all the way down to her neck.  _ What the--  _

Edric ignores her reaction and bounces her in his arms a couple times with a contemplative look on his face. "Dude, she weighs like, nothing," He reports to Emira over his shoulder.

Luz only blinks owlishly, arms held out to carefully avoid touching the boy who’s apparently picked her up and is holding her right now? Her brain still hasn’t caught up to her current situation. She thinks her consciousness has been punted up into the stratosphere. 

Emira nods, crossing her arms, then jerks her chin at Willow, who had gotten up as well sometime during this interaction and was now standing behind the pair. “Willow, right?”

Willow startles, then haltingly goes, “Uh, yes?” 

“Catch!” Edric lilts, and hurls Luz out of his arms like she’s a sack of potatoes. 

For a long second she’s suspended weightless in the air, a strangled sound escaping her unbidden as she squeezes her eyes shut, expecting to crash to the ground for, what, the 6th time today? But instead of the unforgiving dirt, Luz feels a new pair of strong arms cushion her fall and curl her safely into their body. 

She peeks slowly, like if she moves too quickly her savior will disappear. Mild green eyes shining with clear concern swim into view, and she realizes that it’s Willow’s steady hold that she’s been unceremoniously deposited into. “You okay?” 

“Yup!” Luz confirms, voice squeaking. Is she really that light? “Just peachy! You’re very strong.” 

Willow’s brows unfurrow, her face relaxing into a more pleasant expression. “Thanks! I work out." 

“Well that settles it.” Emira says, hands clasped together, looking altogether like the cat that got the cream. “Luz, you’ll be one of our new flyers, and Willow, you’ll be a base. Welcome to the team you two!” 

* * *

_ To Azure,  _

_ I rewatched the Azura movie last night. I’m not sure if you’ll be familiar with it, it’s the live action one?  _

_ It’s somehow worse than I remember it being. If you haven’t seen it yet, do me and yourself a favor and never watch it.  _

* * *

_ To Hecate,  _

_ Oh, no, don’t worry, I’ve SEEN the movie, and i’m being generous in calling it that. it makes me so!!! unbelievably!!! mad!!!!!! I have so many words do not even get me started I could go for HOURS going on about how terrible it is I could write ESSAYS.  _

* * *

_ To Azure,  _

_...You know. I’m curious.  _ I  _ know why it’s bad, but I’d also like to hear your thoughts on it. Why do you hate it?  _

* * *

_ To Hecate,  _

_ Congratulations! You’ve torn Pandora’s box in half! You LITERALLY asked for this!!!! I can’t be blamed for how many pages this is going to be!! _

_ (You can’t hear it but I just cleared my throat.) Okay so, I could talk about the inaccurate costume designs. The mishandling of multiple characters’ arcs. The atrocious pacing. How they took a series full of life and fun and magic and somehow sucked it completely dry of all of those things. Or the constant weirdly somber lighting? And I will! But I think I’ll start off with the thing that makes me want to commit  _ **_serial arson_ ** _. The first and in my opinion  _ **_WORST_ ** _ of many vile crimes.... _

_ EXHIBIT A. THE WHITEWASHING OF AZURA’S CHARACTER-- _

* * *

At their first real meet the next day, Willow  _ willingly _ calls Luz over to sit next to her while Emira walks them through their stretches. A swell of relief that the girl hadn’t chosen to ignore her blooming under her ribs, Luz obliges. 

Willow is quiet and reserved at first, until Luz makes it clear that she’s listening while she talks. They make a breakthrough when, after Luz asks her about the garden she mentions, her new friend (?) takes out her phone and flicks through pictures of all of her specimens to describe each of them to Luz, her voice noticeably picking up once they get to her carnivorous plant collection.

She’d always been told that the easiest way to make friends was to get them to talk about themselves by asking them lots of questions, so that’s what Luz does-- and it works in her favor anyways, because pitcher plants are one of the coolest things she’s ever heard of and she doesn’t have to pretend to be attentive when Willow enthusiastically describes them.

(And, well, if she avoids mentioning things about herself that’d drive Willow off in that same action, then that’s just two birds with one stone.) 

Actual practice is unexpectedly brutal, as Edric and Emira subscribe to the idea of dropping newbies straight into the deep end and watching them sink until they learn to swim. Luz has experience, yes, but cheerleading is just different enough from gymnastics that she has to use muscles that she doesn’t usually, and her brain is fried from trying to learn routines. 

It’s still fun because it turns out that Luz being a flyer and Willow being a base means that they’ll be working together often, and they already mesh well. They learn how to properly hold and be held, how to keep the balance of two people, how to spot when your partner is falling, exercises of trust that should be harder than they actually turn out to be. Willow is basically the concept of gentle sincerity given human form, and Luz was never the cautious sort, so putting her life in her hands is easy. Their shared focus kills most of the stagnant air that could have spread between them. 

They’re given a short break and she collapses in a heap next to Willow, who’s doing no better. “Oh my god,” she wheezes painfully. “I am so… sweaty. And thirsty.” 

“Oh, here.” Willow hands her a water bottle. 

“Thanks-- hey, wait.” Luz looks around at the grass around them. Narrows her eyes. There weren’t any bottles here when she laid down. She doesn’t understand where this one came from. “This wasn’t here a second ago.” 

“Hm?” And she sounds so untrustworthy, suddenly. Is this someone else's water? Is there something  _ in  _ the water? 

“Willow,” Luz says, suspicious. “Where did you get this.” 

She doesn't answer. 

"Willow?"

Willow, sprawled on her back in the grass, laughs vaguely. 

“I have no clue what that means. I’m gonna drink this and if I drop dead you have to tell my mom what happened.” Luz guzzles the water and smiles around the spout at Willow’s mischievous silence giving way to a snort. 

She finishes drinking and wipes her mouth off with the back of her wrist as she finally gives her attention to the group at the other side of the field. The cheerleading team and the football team practiced at the same time, the space big enough that they could each have half, but both groups were apparently usually too busy with their own affairs to bother each other.

Across the field, broad-shouldered kids busy themselves with different drills. Some throw their entire weights into shoving blocking sleds across the grass while others quickly weave around little orange cones. 

One of them pitches a ball and another sprints after it, crossing half the field in a few long strides. As Luz watches, they leap up with a shocking amount of grace, twist in the air to catch it, then land with hardly a stumble. 

Once they’re on the ground they tear off their football helmet and shake out their hair, and it's Amity who just caught the ball. Her face is covered in a light sheen of sweat, and whatever dark flyaway hairs aren't sticking straight up are pasted to her forehead. She turns around to speak to her partner, and Luz can't hear what she's saying this far away, but based on her hand gestures and the focused tilt of her brow, it's probably a lecture of some kind. 

_ Pretty,  _ Luz thinks midgulp, and then nearly chokes on her drink. 

* * *

_ To, Azure _

_ Wow, I... didn’t think you could actually write an entire essay on that but you really delivered. This is literally twelve pages? I’m a little scared but mostly impressed. And I completely agree. Especially about-- _

* * *

  
  


It’s too tiring to change out of her training clothes when they’re done, so Luz just gets her stuff from her locker and walks Willow to her bus. (She'll just… return the clothes later.) They don’t have any classes together so they probably won’t talk during the day, but Willow promises she’ll take more pictures of her Venus flytrap for Luz to see next meet.

Her steps echo hollow on the linoleum as she traipses alone down the hall, texting Eda trying to figure out where she’s parked. Neither of them understand the map of the school at all yet, and the fact that there’s no car line to follow this time makes it a challenge for the both of them. 

“Mittens, we all know we’re not leaving you alone until you answer,” someone says from around the corner, making Luz look up from her phone, “So you might as well just tell us and save yourself the trouble.  _ Who,  _ in your honest opinion, made the better routine?” 

“Neither,” another voice growls, “You both suck.” 

“Okay, but that’s not the question. We’re not asking who’s  _ good,  _ it’s who’s  _ better, _ ” and now Luz is paying enough attention that she recognizes the voice as familiar, as Emira’s, just as she turns the corner and three sets of the exact same eyes fall on her. 

She realizes three things all at once: 

One, that that’s Edric and Emira with Amity standing in the middle of them, hunched under the weight of the twins’ arms thrown over her shoulders as she holds what looks like all their sports bags. 

Two, they  _ all  _ look similar, have the same sharp eyes and dark hair, and if she’s not wrong they just called Amity ‘ _ Mittens’  _ and they’re touching her and not being killed, so they’re probably related. 

Three, oh, so  _ they’re  _ the ‘Ed and Em’ Amity had mentioned before.

“Luz!” The twins crow happily. Amity glares at her silently between them, dislike radiating off her in waves. The contrast between the three is so stark that Luz doesn’t know how to greet them. 

“Hi guys!” is what she decides on eventually and smiles, a little awkward. 

“Great job at practice today!” Edric says, which is quickly followed by Amity going, “What did I say about talking to me.” 

“Woah, Mittens!” Emira gives her a reproachful look. “I know you’re grumpy because you didn’t take your nap today but that doesn’t mean you can be a jerk to your friends, babe.” 

Amity is becoming a rather furious shade of red. She knocks off both her siblings’ arms and hisses, “We are  _ not  _ friends! And don’t call me that!” 

“Hmm,” Edric hums as he and Emira slither around to Luz’s side like a pair of snakes, smirking at their sister from over her shoulder. “Fooled me from how much you were talking about her, but now that you say that it makes sense. She does seem way too cool for you.” 

Luz blinks and can’t help but scrunch up her nose. That sounds fake. “I-I am?” 

“Yeah, totally! You’d have much more fun hanging out with us than her, trust me.” Emira leans into Luz’s side and whispers conspiratorially, “Mittens acts all tough but she’s a  _ total  _ nerd and she shows it all the time when no one’s looking. Like this one time, when she was five--” 

“Okay!” Amity interjects and stalks forward. In one smooth motion she catches Emira around the middle, hefts her up her shoulder in a fireman’s carry, and marches down the hall. “That’s enough! We’re leaving now!” 

“Hey, wait up!” Edric calls, throwing a farewell grin at Luz over his shoulder before trotting after his sisters.

Emira doesn’t even try to break out of the hold, just cackles with her chin resting demurely on her hands as she’s bounced away. “Fine, I’ll tell you later sometime!” She winks, and Luz chokes as butterflies are sent whirling through her stomach. “See you around, cutie.” 

_ Cutie?  _ Luz waves at them on autopilot until they’re out of sight, then turns and speedwalks away to find Eda’s car. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is a secret: there was nothing wrong w willow’s water bottle she just like. Grabbed it from somewhere and luz didn’t see bc she was distracted. I think she deserves to be a little shit that harmlessly messes w/ people sometimes and also that luz thinks thats funny bc their senses of humor go together. Do u ever just pretend to poison your friends for a second
> 
> remember that time when i said i would upload every one or two weeks? Right before exams started? And new years and christmas? Right when i went home for the holidays and messed up my entire writing schedule for months? Remember that? Never listen to me again im a goddamn clown
> 
> i hope how i dotted the letters throughout this section wasn't like... confusing? many days are passing and they are talking but I'm only including a few of the letters they've sent each other for the sake of brevity. i overexplain things as it is!!
> 
> small announcement i made a [14+ discord server for talking about reading and writing owl house fics](https://discord.gg/acG6xB2z) so! feel free to join that! its pretty small atm but it’s nice and very chill. Read the rules i beg 
> 
> anyways in the good witch movie they casted scarlett johansson as azura and it makes luz want to attack her personally like an angry little dog


End file.
